Must employees be paid for time spent undergoing exit security process?
Must employees be paid for time spent on employer premises in their personal vehicles while waiting to scan an identification badge, with guards then peering into their vehicles before the employees exit through a security gate?
In Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, that was one of three questions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the California Supreme Court recently answered concerning the meaning of compensable “hours worked” under California law.
George Huerta filed suit, on behalf of himself and other employees, against CSI Electrical Contractors (CSI), for whom the employees performed work at a solar power facility. At the end of each workday, the workers waited in a long line in their personal vehicles outside a security gate, where guards scanned each worker’s badge and sometimes peered into their vehicles and truck beds, searching for stolen tools or endangered species located near the worksite. This exit procedure could delay the workers’ departure for five to 30 minutes or more, time for which the workers claimed they should have been paid.
California’s high court unanimously agreed.
Click here to read the full article written by SCMV Shareholder Dan Eaton and published in The San Diego Union-Tribune.